I have come to feel that King James onlyism however is a Cancer and there is nothing in my experience like the Discord among true conservative Christians who believe the Bible believe the gospel there's nothing like the Discord that I've seen over the King [Music] James welcome to the sound wordss podcast where it's our goal to help Christians love and live out God's word I'm Aaron Nicholson I'm joined by Jesse Randolph we're pastors here at Indian Hills Community Church in Lincoln Nebraska and listeners we are very thankful for you and your support of this podcast if you haven't yet please subscribe to the sound wordss podcast or drop a comment if this podcast has been helpful to you um we've been blessed and encouraged by those who have submitted comments in the past including two weeks ago roads 241 says sound wordss podcast is at the top of my list for the go-to channel for pre-tribulation Rapture information the message today with brother Lee was great and that was from an episode where we interviewed Lee Brainard on the evidence for a pre-trib Rapture another comment Dennis crumblyy says very sound words thank you good play on words there another user said thank you sir Todd Freel and sound words for sharing the truth you really are inspiring from the Philippines so we are very encouraged that uh these episodes reach Believers all across the world and we thank you for your support well today we have a special guest Dr Mark Ward thank you for joining us on the podcast today Dr Ward it's my privilege thank you for the honor wonderful well well Dr Ward we are going to be talking about the dangers of KJV onlyism on today's episode and and Dr Ward has a PHD in New Testament interpretation from Bob Jones University Seminary he is an editor within the books division at Crossway and he is an author including a book that we're going to talk about today called authorized the use and misuse of the King James Bible he's written another book called bibl ology for beginners what does the Bible say and he has a YouTube channel everybody has a YouTube channel these days but this is a really good one this is a really excellent channel that that gives scholarly insight and pastoral insight into the various Bible translations that are out there and how to think about those from the the standpoint of being a good Berean and from the standpoint of God's word so again Dr Ward we're happy to have you on the podcast and just want to introduce our Our Guest to you if you could just give us a little information about how God LED you into the various roles that you're filling today I'm a Christian I'm a husband I'm a father I'm a church member I like to play Ultimate Frisbee I do YouTube the Lord brought me into all these Arenas really through expository preaching I was a graphic design major I still care about that I actually do graphic design on the side I always have I serve Ministries mostly churches it really bothers me when churches have bad logos bad websites um and a profusion of fonts like my own beloved home church it's the only thing that I object to doctrinally about my church is the the number of fonts they use on signage but uh I knew I wanted to serve the Lord in Ministry with that um that major and I landed in a church while I was going to college that really just rocked my world in the best sense we didn't Rock worlds in fundamentalism in those days but um we did have uh I still think the best expository preacher I've ever heard and I and I'm not saying that lightly I just sat on the edge of my seat like in the literal sense of literally sitting on the edge and I couldn't believe when these hour hour and 10-minute sermons were done we went through Ephesians and long about Ephesians 3 my pastor did something that he very rarely did and that is he gave a come forward invitation and a specific application from the passage where Paul says I am a prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles because of the Revelation that he's received my pastor gave an invitation for full-time Christian service and I and I knew that was me I did not know where I would go but frankly I wanted to be like him I wanted to have the tools that he had for expositing God's word in an engaging and accurate and careful and gracious way and it's not an accident that I just went through the very same program he did the PHD in New Testament at Bob Jones I've never regretted that I've been able to use that training as a Bible textbook author at bju press for a number of years then as all kinds of things at logos and Lex and press which is a subsidiary of logos and now I've just begun at Crossway actually as of this instant when we're recording not when it's released I am unemployed I'm between logos and Crossway in a planned week off I I thought better of introducing you as an unemployed YouTuber I thought we would say you were with Crossway yeah yeah no it sounds like you do plenty and and Dr Ward maybe you mentioned this but who was that expository Pastor his name is Mark Minik he would be one of the more legendary teachers at Bob Jones University he used to teach a class that all the freshmen had to take a Bible class and that's how I was acquainted with him wow praise the Lord for Godly men and godly expositors Godly evangelists Dr Ward now can you help us uh introduce our topic for today's episode tell us a little bit more about the history of the King James version when and for what purpose was the King James version written the King James version was a revision of the 1568 Bishop's Bible and of course that Day in England there you know there's these colonists out in America no one's thinking about and effectively only in England are you having anybody speaking English and you have a state church so King James for historical reasons that my good friend timberg at kjb his.com can get into for you if you want he basically approved the idea of a new translation of the Bible again a revision that would be appointed to be read in churches in the state church so that there would be some some uniformity there of course that's what they're going for in a state church and the the King James version which which was not called that at the time was something of a compromise measure between the high church anglicans and the Puritan party which I'm assuming all of us here would more identify with doctrinally and even just tonally uh the King James was not immediately well received by everybody but soon enough it became the Standard English translation and effectively for the next 300 years that's what everybody used there were still other translations out there from before it and a couple were made after it but until the NIV in the 70s churches that spoke English were using the King James pretty much now Dr War that's a helpful measured walkth through concise history of the King James only translation or revision as you you mentioned how do we now think about the King James only movement what is King James onlyism and what do King James only ISS believe very simply King James onlys and I was one when I was a teenager I was in a otherwise good church I've come to disagree with them over this issue I think they were doctrinally wrong but they weren't jerks about it they weren't arrogant they taught me God's word I'm so grateful for them I am still friends with them I was back there for the first time in 25 years uh within the last year and they received me warmly my old teachers and principles at the Christian School there but they taught ENT ually that the King James is the best translation of the best texts and it goes beyond that it goes to some level of thinking that other translations are corrupt either they are poorly translated that is they use too much Dynamic equivalence that's very commonly stated in King James only circles about pretty much every other translation in the King James or the more common argument they'll make especially if they're a little more sophisticated is that they believe that the Greek texts you know the the Greek New Testament text underlying the Contemporary translations into English of the Bible they are corrupted um they are quote unquote missing verses and they have been satanically corrupted to get rid of Jesus blood and his atonement and to undermine you know statements about Jesus deity and those are very very serious charges and when I first heard them I accepted them you know my pastor would know this stuff I wouldn't But as time passed and as I actually looked at these texts myself I realized this is simply not true and I've I I have a heart for these folks because they loved me so much I've always felt like my work on the King James on the King James only is a as a love letter to fundamentalism and I still count myself a fundamentalist in all the most important respects I have come to feel that King James onlyism however is a cancer afflicting a movement that I love that did so much for me H yeah that's that's helpful and thank you for sharing your story and and how you've experienced King James onlyism um and talked about some of the dangers now Dr Ward can you elaborate more on the dangers of um KJV onlyism where does it lead uh where does it lead people's Faith their practice their theology I would say there are two main dangers one is described by a set of four or five or six depending on how you count works of the Flesh in aans 5 among those are division contention and strife jealousy rivalries those kinds of words actually if you count them up there is about the same number of words maybe even more again depending on how you count describing Division and contention as there are describing sexual sin immorality and the Lord takes this very seriously in Proverbs you know these six things doth the Lord hate I'm quoting the King James this is what I grew up on you know yay seven are an Abomination unto him and one of them is those who sow Discord among brothers and there is nothing in my experience like the Discord among true conservative Christians who believe the Bible believe the gospel there's nothing like the Discord that I've seen over the King James the things that people think they can say to me on my channel um a lot of them are unprintable uh because I'm pushing back not against the King James but against King James onlyism so there's been a ton of division contention and strife you know the King James only crowd absolutely holds themselves distinct and separate from other Christians over this they believe that other Christians are at best compromised somebody like me is much worse I'm an active corruptor of God's word they don't tend to be able to say that to my face you know when I'm actually talking to them but online they'll say that constantly I mean literally every single day in my YouTube comments the other major danger and the one that I really focus on is that people are just missing misunderstanding little things in God's word that they could understand if they would read God's word in a translation into their own English that's my real heartbeat I just want people to understand the Bible and I want to understand the Bible it's God's word and even the little things matter to me because it's God's word so although the King James onlyus will always say to me well can't you just use the dictionary I've developed uh an extensive set of answers to that question the answer really is no on the one hand why should you have to use a dictionary to look up a word like beum when broom this is Isaiah 14:23 is ready at hand and everybody knows the word broom I don't think that you should have to look up words in a translation when there are contemporary equivalents that are exactly as accurate that's the whole point of translation giving the Bible to the plow boy uh on the other hand though there are words that people don't realize their misunderstanding just this week I'm finishing up my next Lex and press book King James words you don't know you don't know I call them false friends because you assume you understand but you read right past them and you don't realize because of language anguage change your misunderstanding it's not that you're a dummy not that I was a dummy I was I was missing these words growing up and well into adulthood it's that language has changed in subtle ways that people don't realize so I've tried to build on common ground with King James onlyest they do want to understand God's word I know they do because they taught me to do it I was there they weren't being disingenuous it was absolutely true of them so I say don't you want to understand well you need to realize how many words you don't realize your misunderstanding that's been my approach to King James onlyism based on what I think to be the worst fruit of it that is people misunderstanding God's word in lots of mostly little places yeah so you've written a book actually multiple books on bibliology one of the King James only debate or the King James Bible the translation you have a YouTube channel where you engage with folks on on both sides of this debate you mentioned one finding common ground to to to winsomely appeal to those who who hold that view what are some other strategies you've employed as you engage with those who hold you to King James onlyism I fight what I would call a rear guard action when it comes to New Testament textual criticism I have taken New Testament textual criticism on The Graduate level on the doctoral level and I have a lot of friends who are New Testament textual critics Peter G and John me John me is Old Testament but down at Phoenix Seminary at the Tex and Canon Institute is fantastic the Evangelical textual criticism blog if you're interested in the history of the New Testament text and the old Testament text in Greek and in Hebrew respectively then you might want to read up on these things I talk about them a little bit in bibliology for beginners and I do talk about them a little bit on my channel but I do not promote any particular edition of the Greek New Testament I think that effectively all of them are so incredibly similar it's just not worth dividing over so when I when I talk about it the purpose is not to promote my viewpoint is to bring peace actually mark mik one of the first things I remember him saying as he was going through The Sermon on the Mount in my freshman Bible class was that when Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers he meant active promoters of peace and that does involve some conflict but the conflict has this purpose of restoring Unity among Christ sheep and I have seen that happen praise God I've seen that happen so I do talk about textual criticism I talk about translation in general I don't push back against King James onlyism and then leave people there I want to take what's wrong and I would actually say evil not that the people are evil but that this doctrine that divides Christ's body and is based on tons of untruths it's evil yeah when I take that evil thing away I want to replace it with something good and that something good is not just people's conscien is freed to read God's word in their own English but people's conscien is freed to read God's word in multiple good English Bible translations that we have today and to understand why they exist to get some benefit out of the functional or dynamic ones like the NIV the csb the New Living Translation and the more literal ones like the ESV the nasb the new King James I think people are kind of bowled over by the existence of these multiple Bible translations they assume it's all just there for Publishers to make money that just is not true I won't say money plays no role but I know the people that make these Bibles and they're just trying to teach God's word to people in their own language so I'm trying to equip people with something good the ability to study God's word in multiple excellent English Bible translations yeah I appreciate the way you you're speaking the truth in love and you're fighting for the truth and for uh the ability for believers to understand the truth and you've said before earlier in this episode that you're not against those who use the King James version so let's talk positively about the KJV what if anything do churches lose if they do not use KJV as their chosen translation I think it's really important for us to acknowledge that there were major benefits that came to us when we all as an English-speaking Christian Church shared one Bible translation Protestants evangelicals all around the world Australia New Zealand you know even in India certainly the United States and Britain it was there were people weren't doubting the translation so much when there was only one they weren't looking in my experience for the hidden agenda behind translation choices and now they do I think that Publishers need to do their very best to Steward the trust of God's people that's been placed in them and it that was easier when the king said we're going to use this and we all used this and then that kind of stuck I think that learning scripture by osmosis just by being in the Christian Community you know what comes out of my mind and heart still to this day is the King James that's what I memorized I think there's value there I'm a writer I'm I'm an inveterate writer I can't stop it and it's helpful to have one source of Illusions so that when I quote the Bible everybody knows that I'm quoting the Bible there are a lot of these important things that we have to weigh in the balances but I say take all of those things you know the multigenerational ties that we enjoy the scriptural Illusions in classic hity take all those genuinely valuable things and weigh them on the scales against this other thing which would be the plow boy under Understanding God's word and I say that outweighs everything else that doesn't mean I dismiss those things I weigh them and if there's ways I can preserve those values great so I think within a given church it's fine if if you have one Pulpit standard I think that gives some of those benefits back I think we have to acknowledge we're never going to get those benefits back what pope what Evangelical is going to tell everybody okay we're all going to use the NIV now it's not going to work so we need to figure out how can we see the benefits of the situation that we're in yeah that's helpful and and humble as as you're the way you're thinking about the way you're articulating it how do you now on the other side of things you know outside of the the KJV only camps that you engage with when it comes to your own time in God's word or teaching God's word or writing about God's word how do you make decisions about which translation you're going to engage with and I know you said you're not here to to Champion or advocate for one but with the the wealth of options we have today how do you go about making decisions as to which which version you're going to pull off the shelf and use in a particular situation so for 20 plus years 25 years I guess I've been using multiple English Bible translations practically daily I guess it is 25 years because in 1999 I brought a parallel Bible that had the King James the Amplified The New American Standard 95 and the NIV for me personally my Bible study is proplate you know I'll use anything I do tend to use Evangelical translations and I tend to use the major ones but I will go check French and Spanish and Portuguese and Italian you know depending on how deep my study of a given passage is I want to get sort of a pleite a referendum among excellent Bible interpreters translators so that's my answer for Bible study for Bible reading I tend to read a different translation each year I tend to take a year and a half to two years to read through the Bible uh for the last couple years I've been doing audio Bibles I've done the the tnv I've done the NIV I've done the new King James I'm actually now reading through the King James I'm listening on the dwell app um I've done the ESV of course when it comes to public Ministry I find for me personally I don't get to choose I've never been the top guy who says this is the one we're going to use the one time I had some influence there I was an assistant pastor for a number of years at a little church nearby here uh when I came here that's what I was doing and we used the ESV and I do think I'm I'm not saying this just because I'm about to work for Crossway and when you hear this I will be working for Crossway but I do think that the ESV is probably the the best heir to the King James I think that it is what the King James translators would have produced if they were alive today and working on the same basic principles and I think as a graphic designer that the ESV is uh has produced the best most classy and I think that really matters volumes out there and the best range of them you know journaling Bibles and study Bibles and you know different text block sizes I think that really matters and that they have captured in a way that the other the rest of the publishing industry has realized they need to catch up to they've captured what a Bible should look like and that that really does help my Bible study so for those reasons over the years I've tended to say the ESV is my favorite you know if you put a gun to my head but nobody's putting a gun to my head I can use whatever translations I have in logos and do I use them all of the time and I encourage others to do the same yeah we are at a privileged day and age right where we have access to so many versions of God's word and just in talking to you Dr word it's obvious that you hold God's word in a high place and um you you believe that God's word changes people it's inspired it's profitable for teaching reproof for correction for training up in righteousness and so I appreciate your efforts in getting the Bible into the everyday plow boy the everyday person the everyday believer and um we know that it's God's word that will change people so absolutely thank you very much for your time today thank you for talking with us and answering our questions and if you're interested in learning more about Dr Mark Ward's Ministry listeners you can go to YouTube and search Mark Ward on Words and look up his channel well the final word as always goes to God in his word from 2 Timothy 1:13 where Paul says to Timothy retain the standard of sound Words which you've heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus thanks for listening [Music]